WEBVTT - Civic Cipher 042322 Darryl Howard and The Justice System's Disregard for Black Men (Part 2) 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:05.680 And now watching my mic back, you're like that. 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.879 Time can strikes with waters from headquarters behind him to 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:13.480 be the border. 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.440 If you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I am 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:16.599 your host, ramses Josh. 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.400 I think you already know this when I go by 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:20.160 the name Q. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:23.520 Yes, we do, and be sure to stay tuned. We 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.599 still got a lot on more show in store for you. 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:32.000 You're going to talk about the way the criminal justice 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:39.240 system treats black people and hopefully share some things that 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:47.159 you didn't know that we know very well. Unfortunately. You know, 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.520 Q and I both have personal stories, uh not, I guess, 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:53.800 not personal, but I guess in our family folks dealing 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.240 with the criminal justice system and just how unfair it is, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:00.920 and you know, you're kind of fighting a hopeless fight 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:02.720 just kind of sucks you and choose you up and 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.000 swallows you. A little Later in the show, we're also 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.560 going to talk about the first African American umpire in 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:12.479 Major League Baseball. But first and foremost, let's discuss how 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:17.759 to become a better ally. So give me a favorite. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:22.160 Make a note. There's a movie called Who We Are 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.600 and I talked about this a lot of you know, 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:31.279 I do a show for iHeartMedia. They have a vertical 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.600 called the Black Information Network, and I host this show 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.840 for them. And I got a chance to speak with 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.280 the director of this film. Amazing film. If you're black, 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:43.720 if you're white, it doesn't matter who you are, if 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:48.400 you're a citizen in this country. It is a film 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.920 worth watching. It will educate you. It educated me. And 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.720 I'm I live this. You know, I does this, and 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.040 I've found out some stuff, So I'll read this briefly. 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.760 Former a c ACOU deputy legal director Jeffrey Robinson had 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:04.200 one of the best educations in America. Went to Markette 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.000 University in Harvard Law School in a trial lawyer po 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:10.520 over forty years. Twenty eleven, Robinson began raising his thirteen 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:13.200 year old nephew as a black man raising a black son. 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.880 Struggled with that to tell his son about racism in America. How, 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.639 he wondered, did we get here? And when he started 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.200 looking at our nation's history, Robinson was shocked by what 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.079 he had not known. The film interweaves historical on present 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:30.480 day archival footage, Robinson's personal story, and observational and interview 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.200 footage capturing Robinson's meetings of meetings with black change makers 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.520 and eyewitnesses to history, from Hain Tree in Charleston, South Carolina, 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:40.799 to a walking tour of the origins of slavery and 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:42.880 colonial New York, to the site of a nineteen forty 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.480 seven lynching at rural Alabama. The film brings history to life, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.720 exploring the enduring legacy of white supremacy and our collective 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.239 responsibility to overcome it. Robinson shows us how legalized discrimination 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:58.200 and state sanctioned brutality murdered disposition, and this possession, sorry 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:03.280 and disenfranchisement continued long after slavery ended, profoundly impeding Black Americans' 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.440 ability to create and accumulate wealth, as well as to 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.440 gain access to jobs, housing, education, and healthcare. His words 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.360 laid bare and all but forgotten past, as well as 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:14.440 our shared responsibility to create a better country in our lifetimes. Again. 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:19.120 The movie is called Who We Are. Watch it for 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:28.120 me you will love it now. I mentioned earlier in 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:32.520 the show about wrongful convictions a person that I very 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:36.600 much look up to named Brian Stevenson, who has a 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.000 program we call it the Equal Justice Initiative, and he's 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:43.640 a lawyer, and what he does is he works to 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.440 overturn wrongful convictions. Oftentimes he finds him he's a black man. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.960 He often finds himself helping out black men caught up 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:54.680 in the criminal justice system again who've been wrongly convicted. 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:59.440 He does help other folks almost everyone is poor, but 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.200 but yeah, he finds that a lot of times black 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:08.680 people end up in these strange situations. We mentioned confessions 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:11.560 you know how police Earlier in the show, we mentioned 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:13.040 how police can lie to you to get you to 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:17.440 confess to things that you didn't do, something you may 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:19.640 not know, and we'll end up doing a full episode 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.520 on this. Is that there are about ten thousand laws 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:29.480 in existence in this country, and that means that police 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:35.640 have ten thousand ways two get you caught up in 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.720 something that you didn't even know was wrong. You might 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:41.440 think you're helping. If they want to, they can get you. 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.920 I was, in fact, I was watching a documentary or sorry, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.960 a lecture from a police officer who said, you know, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:52.800 if I get behind you and I follow you long enough, 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:54.480 eventually you're going to break some law and I'll be 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.120 able to pull you over. And this is a real thing. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.440 I remember when I was in college, we had an 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:05.720 officer teaching one of my classes back then, and he 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:10.200 said he was an office. He was telling a story 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:13.480 about sort of the mid nineties when I'm from the Southwest, 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.040 so lowrider culture was real big then think you know, 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.000 early to mid nineties Snoop Dog Doctor Dre death Row 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:24.120 records this time in America, so lowriders were a big deal. 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.599 So in college, this is my first year of college. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.000 This this officer was telling us that he was like 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:36.320 a high up officer, maybe like a boss officer. I 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:38.360 don't know what the rankings are called or whatever, but 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:40.680 the main guy who told the other police what to do. 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:42.840 And he says, hey, guys, we're going to get out 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.320 in the streets and we're going to like clean up 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.239 these streets or whatever. And so I want you pulling 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.880 over every car that even crawls like a lowrider. And 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.279 he explained how they were able to do it, which 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.039 was effectually the same way. Just follow them until they 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.680 break some you know, have some in fraction, and then 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:02.200 pull them over, pull them out of the car, search 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:08.680 the car, you know whatever. You know. To people where 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.039 this is not their reality, it sounds crazy. It sounds like, well, 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:13.520 if you just don't do anything wrong. The police won't 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.360 bother you. No, the police won't bother you. This is 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.039 called privilege, you know what I mean. So this doesn't 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.000 happen to you, You might want to check that. And 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.040 again I will say, because that word is triggering for 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.400 a lot of folks. Privilege is not starting with more. 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:30.320 It's just not starting with less. Okay, that's privilege. You're 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:39.480 not starting behind the start line. These things and others 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:45.000 frame the criminal justice system, you know, if it wants to, 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.360 it'll just reach out, grab you, suck you, and you 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.880 don't have to necessarily even do anything wrong. Of course, 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.480 we know about if you do something wrong. There's disproportionate sentences. 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:58.080 There's all kinds of crazy stuff that goes on, mistreatment, 0:06:58.200 --> 0:06:59.880 you know, at every step along the way, you know, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:01.880 which is more prevalent for black and brown folks than 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:04.080 it is for non black and brown folks in this country. 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:08.240 But the whole thing works very well for one group 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:09.720 of people, and it doesn't really work so well for 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.480 everyone else. And the people that it works well for 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.600 are very supportive of keeping it the way that it is, 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:23.880 and oftentimes they have enough votes or influence or otherwise 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.000 to maintain the status quo. The world is perfect for them, 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:30.560 then it should, in theory, be perfect for everyone. Otherwise 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.280 we need to adjust to it. The thing is, it's 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.400 very difficult to adjust to it when it eats up 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:38.800 black lives. One such black life is the story I'll 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:43.960 be telling you today. This comes from the Atlanta Black Star. 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.880 A wrongfully convicted black man who successfully fought to have 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:50.760 two murder convictions overturned and received a pardon from the 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.800 North Carolina governor for those crimes, sued the city for 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:58.280 six million dollars and one remember that he won wrongful 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.840 convictions sued the city and one. However, officials in the 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.760 city of Durham have rejected the jury's judgment, deciding they 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.120 will not pay the award after spending money to fight 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.880 the case. How about that? According to The News Observer, 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:15.960 a federal jury found retired detective Daryl Dowdy, who spent 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:20.320 thirty six years with the city, lied on Daryl Howard 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.920 in nineteen ninety five. As a result, Howard spent twenty 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:26.360 one and a half years of an eighty year sentence 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:31.480 in prison. A federal jury found that Doughty violated Howard's 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.760 civil rights by fabricating evidence and purposefully conducting a poorly 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:40.480 run investigation. These actions resulted in a jury convicting Howard 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.280 of two counts of second degree murder and one count 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:47.120 of arson. The costly trial lasted several weeks, with the 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.920 city spending more than four million dollars in litigation and 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:55.680 defense of the detective. Howard and his attorney argued Dowdy 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:57.719 was given the authority by way of his badge, to 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.880 set Howard up to be convicted for murdering Doris Washington 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.199 twenty nine or thirteen year old daughter Nishanda in nineteen 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.400 ninety one. The two females were found dead in their 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:09.800 Few Gardens apartment. DNA evidence suggested both mother and daughter 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.679 were sexually assaulted before they were set on fire. However, 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.680 no DNA or biological evidence linked Howard to the crime 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.040 scene or as the rapist. At one point, there was 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.600 an eyewitness who testified against Howard, but his accounts were 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:27.840 scrutinized for being vague or contradictory. The witness reportedly even 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.520 recanted his story to police overtime. Let's call it collercion. 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:34.199 I don't know that, so let me not call it that. 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:38.679 I'm going to preserve some journalistic integrity here. But it 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.000 looks like that. Okay, I'll say that all right. In 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:48.120 twenty fourteen, Durham Senior Resident Judge Orlando Hudson vacated Howard's conviction, 0:09:48.320 --> 0:09:50.960 but the state pushed back with an appeal. The Innocence 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:55.040 Project decided this is different from Brian Stevenson, so this 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.800 is called The Ennocence Project decided to represent the fifty 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.079 eight year old, presenting new DNA evidence that led to 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.040 a reversal of his conviction. Originally, Howard asked for forty 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.240 eight million dollars in damages, two million for each year 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:08.719 he was incarcerated, plus five million for the impact his 0:10:08.840 --> 0:10:11.920 imprisonment had on his life. The jury decided to award 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.080 him six million dollars, so he didn't get the forty 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.520 eight He got six million. But you know it's not nothing, right, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.080 Actually it is nothing. So despite this finding, the Durham 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:24.280 City Council opted to withhold the recommended seven figure judgment 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.640 in the case. The decision was made during a series 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.800 of cold closed meetings over a three month span between 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.280 December and February. City Attorney Kimberly Reeberg said this was 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.400 the first time a jury made a bad faith finding 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.760 huh regarding a city employee, quote, the city generally proceeds 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.680 under the presumption that, however conduct may have been portrayed 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.959 in a complaint, the employee was engaged in the good 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.160 faith execution of their duties on behalf of the city 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:51.439 and was thus entitled to defense and quote. One of 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.360 Howard's lawyers, Brad Bannon, called his client an actual victim. 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.439 They pay all that money, they enrich a bunch of lawyers, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:00.360 and then the moment they have to pay the actual 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.079 victim of the city's conduct here, they said, we're not 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.360 going to back this. He said about the decision. Quote, 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.599 do you know how hard that? Sorry? Do you know 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:14.920 how hard that is? In a system? Oh? Sorry, I'm 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:16.760 saying it wrong. Do you know how hard that is 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.480 in a system that gives police officers almost absolute immunity? 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:25.720 There it is that gives prosecutions complete immunity. Ben In asked, 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:27.760 it's not easy. I can tell you that, he said, 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.920 noting that his client did it and won. It is offensive. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.680 That is not being honored. Weberg wrote in a statement, 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.000 if the facts and circumstances of the claim or the 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.319 suit in which the judgment is entered, showed that the 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.839 officer or employee was engaged in good faith performance of 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.480 his duties on behalf of the city when the act 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.800 of omission, the act or omission giving rise to the 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:50.480 claim or suit occurred. A jury of mister Dowdy's peers 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.760 determined that mister Dowdy engaged in fabrication of evidence and 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.280 bad faith failure to investigate. She continued, But that decision 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:03.600 about Dowdy, not the city. The municipality's reaped suggest Initially, 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.640 the city and other employees were named in the lawsuit, 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:08.480 she said, but those claims are all dismissed her dropped 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:10.920 by the time the case made it to trial. Dowdy's lawyer, 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.880 Patricia Shields, thinks the city should pay and not leave 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.720 her client with the bill. She revealed she had an 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:18.760 inkling the city was not going to settle or pay 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:20.920 a jury's judgment against Dowdy as far back as August 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:23.200 twenty twenty one, someone close to the case told her 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:25.760 the city didn't believe they were obligated to pay if 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:29.240 the court said he was guilty. She also questioned the 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.040 rationale to spend so much of taxpayer's dollars to defend 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.559 the former detective to simply refuse to pay the judgment, saying, quote, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:37.760 the city has known all along what Captain Dowdy did, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.800 decided to defend him on that basis. All right, we're 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.319 almost on here. Poor People's campaign leader Reverend William J. 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.559 Barber blasted the council decision, calling it an injustice. He 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.760 noted the case wasted taxpayers money considering the millions of 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:53.280 dollars they spent on a trial. The preacher called for 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.439 the council to change their minds. Quote. While mister Howard 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.640 didn't die, his life, died, his years, died his opportunity, died, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.560 his time died. You took twenty years, said Barbara. While 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.800 the city is opting not to compensate Howard. Legal documents 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:08.320 showed the city once the wrongfully convicted man to pay 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.040 the legal fees of two city workers dropped from the 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.679 original lawsuit. Okay, so let me boil that back down 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:25.080 to you. This man was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Right 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:31.959 police officer fabricated evidence, otherwise framed him to get that 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:35.640 initial conviction. After twenty one and a half years, we're 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.400 talking about black life and how the system, the justice 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.120 system treats black life, and the reason why this case 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.640 doesn't surprise us, but hopefully it surprises you. Hopefully this 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.199 is not your norm, because then we're all in a 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:50.559 lot of trouble, you know what I mean, not just 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:54.000 black folks. But you need to know this, especially if 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:55.520 you're not a black person, because you need to know 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:57.640 the sort of things that happened to us that we're 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:04.319 numb to. I'll continue the officer fabricated evidence. Man goes 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:08.640 to jail for twenty one and a half years, he 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:14.679 gets his conviction overturned, and he's awarded six million dollars 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:19.480 in damages. Right, So that's a tragedy by itself because 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:22.560 if someone asked me to go to prison for twenty 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:24.360 one and a half years and I would get six 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.400 million dollars at the end of it, I'd say absolutely not. 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.960 I want to live my life. Right, I'm sure you 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:38.240 would agree, But whatever, six million dollars. The city says, Nope, 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.360 we're not going to pay. Knowing that after the new trial, 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.040 all the new evidence that's presented, all the DNA everything, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.720 and it's not going to pay it. Then they say 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.680 they want him to pay for the lawyer fees for 0:14:53.840 --> 0:15:01.560 the other city employees dropped from the complaint. Now, I 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.640 know that this is kind of an example that kind 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:09.080 of pulls from so many different things that black folks 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.680 complain about. But I've shared on this show before that 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.480 I have an older brother who went to prison for 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:21.160 was it twelve or fourteen years something like that. For 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.400 those of you who are fans of Merse from the 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.960 Living Legends, LA underground hip hop group, there's a song 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.680 called Oakie Dog. You can look it up on YouTube. 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:32.960 It's a dope song and Mrs wrote that song about 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.760 my brother. Okie Dog. Okay, I e ed Og. Check 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:47.480 it out. Anyway, my brother bought a new Escalade when 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:51.400 those were still new and was driving around in California, 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:53.840 you know where there's a lot of carjackings and sort 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.720 of them. He did have a gun kept it in 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.200 the car just because carjackings. You know, he's he's a 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.080 gun guy. I'm not a gun guy, So that'll be that. 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.960 One night, there were some people that were kind of 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.040 messing with his then girlfriend now life. She stayed with 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.680 him when he was in prison. So shout out to Lou, 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:21.200 we love you, Lou. Anyway, some guys were messing with 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:27.200 her at an apartment complex, right, altercation occurred. My brother 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.280 went and trying to protect his women from these guys, 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:32.480 like kind of trying to you know, guys can be 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:34.920 guys like hey, what's up lady, you know whatever, trying 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.080 to touch on you whatever. Got his gun. After the altercation, 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:40.600 shot the gun in the air to scare the guys away. 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:48.960 Police get called out, my brother gets arrested. Now, if 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.440 you're discharging a weapon in California, I think that's illegal 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:56.760 or something like that. So you know, you get punished 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.360 for that, probably not fourteen years of your life punished, 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.000 but you get punished. But what they did was they 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:11.680 called it attempted murder, and that changes things. And sort 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:13.840 of good news early on was that it was on 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:18.879 video because the complex had video cameras. Now I didn't know. 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:20.639 I don't know all the details of the story. A 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:22.280 it was a million years ago, and b I was 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.120 so much younger than that. They didn't want to share 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:30.600 the details of the story with me, right, But I 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.120 remember there being a video and everyone was so happy, like, Okay, 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:36.960 there's a video, so clearly it shows the gun was 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.240 getting shot in the air, not at the people. So 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.960 it's not attempted murder. It's just simply discharging the weapon. 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.119 And even though it's wrong, we understood why he did it. 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:46.760 He wasn't just being an idiot. He was trying to 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:48.960 protect his woman and scare these guys off or whatever. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:56.200 Somehow or other, that video was not allowed to be 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.399 presented to the court as evidence, like somehow it was. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.879 I'm not a legal expert, so I couldn't tell you 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.240 how or why, but that was what ended up happening. 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.480 So what ended up happening was my brother had to 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:17.320 accept a plea deal. Well he didn't have to because 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:18.840 he had all the lawyers in the world. My other 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:20.520 brother is a lawyer, you know what I mean. So 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:22.639 there was a team of lawyers. But you know, the 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.520 police kind of cornered him and scared him. I guess, 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:29.840 you know. We talked about it a couple of times, 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:31.800 but I don't know what was going through his brain 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.520 in that moment. I feel like he was scared and 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:41.440 he accepted a plea deal, which basically says, yes, it 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.840 was attempted murder, don't go so hard on me, and 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:49.880 I'll just go to prison. And so what the top 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.920 end could have been maybe a year sentence for discharging 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.440 a weapon, which again understandably if you got to sometimes 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.440 you got to make that tough call, you know what 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:00.280 I mean, like, Hey, am I going to protect my 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.160 family or am I going to and risk going to jail? 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:04.879 Or am I going to just let this stuff happen? 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:06.760 You know, when I'm outnumbered and there's clearly a lot 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:08.919 of these guys and I have access to this weapon 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.520 that could help, you know, protect us in this situation. 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:19.120 So that decision ended up taking my brother away from 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.080 all of us for I think it was fourteen years. 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.520 I saw him one time in jail because he was 0:19:26.560 --> 0:19:28.200 so far away, and then I lived in a different 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:30.960 state and just you know, we wrote letters and things 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:32.200 like that, but I only was able to go see 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:33.480 him once. I went to see him again, but they 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:41.560 wouldn't let me go. And so that's a personal story 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.560 that actually happened. Right. So this person we're talking about 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:49.719 right now, Darryl Howard, a wrongful conviction. How the criminal 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.960 justice just takes these people, and you know, black people 0:19:54.000 --> 0:20:01.040 are disproportionately represented in prison populations. Oftentimes people become instant initutionalized. 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:11.239 You know, and you know, their prospects shift because now 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.320 they've been in prison there, you know, this is all 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.520 they know. You know, this is their skill set and 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.680 they can't get a job. And then they've been hanging 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.479 out with criminals for however long, so you know, they 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:23.720 move like a criminal. Now they think like a criminal 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:26.840 because that's what they've been around. They're trying to protect 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.640 themselves at every move. So it's there to become institutionalized. 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.000 And when they get back out on the streets, it's 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.760 like your likelihood of reoffending skyrockets because you don't believe 0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:37.320 that you have any problem. What am I good at? 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:38.920 What can I do? I've been in a box for 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.400 one hundred years and now I have to figure out 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:45.240 how to make money and live, you know. So there's 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.200 a human element that I think a lot of people 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.720 miss when it comes to, you know, the prison system 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.080 by itself, but it's especially cool in how it treats 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.080 black people. And we say that a lot on this show. 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.720 But it was to kind of breathe life into a 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.080 story and give you an example. And you know, I 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.480 could have made this a footnote on a much bigger, 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:08.879 you know, subject, but I felt like this kind of 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:13.159 could stand on its own. So qute, I got it. 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.080 I'm sorry, man, I've been talking about this show, but 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.680 I got about another minute. Give me how this hits 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:25.640 you once again? There's no shockers here. 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.000 Yeah right, you say that we make a concerted effort 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.080 to not get numb to these things, and numb isn't 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:31.520 the right word. 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:32.240 I'm not numb. 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.159 It It hurts just as bad. It makes me just 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.920 as angry, It makes me just as discouraged and hopeless 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.040 as always. Right, So it's not that it's numbing, it's 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.760 not that I'm over it. It's like treading water permanently. 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.159 We never get to come up for air. We never 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.280 even get to sit on the boat. We're not swimming, 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.600 we're not having a good time. We're just trying not 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:02.879 to drown constantly inside the system that's designed for us 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:08.320 to drown. And the power in this country, even when 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:11.159 there are punitive damages, get to just say no, we 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:15.159 don't want to, and then that has to be this 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:19.520 man's reality. Yeah you won, and yeah we messed up. 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:24.000 But and I know our listeners can't. 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.080 See me, but well I think that that sound says 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:34.679 it all. But yeah, it's maddening. Bro's it's. 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:37.800 I have to get at the source so I can 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:40.600 get some better words, because maddening doesn't even really say enough. 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:48.680 Well. I feel like if we take you know, a 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:50.879 lot of times we have these thought experiments on this show. Here, 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:56.560 if we change black man to twenty six year old, 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.359 blond haired, blue eyed white woman, I don't tell the 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.040 same story. I don't know why you always put age, 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.080 just because it just helps you. It just helps people 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.720 to visualize who were talking. Yeah, but don't but don't qualify. 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.200 It does not have to be a twenty something year 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:17.160 old blond haired, blue eyed white woman. Fairpoint, fairpoint, change 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:21.960 the race or the ethnicity to white. That's all. That's it. Yeah, 0:23:22.000 --> 0:23:27.320 you're right. But yes, when you do that and you 0:23:27.400 --> 0:23:31.240 tell yourself the same story, does it sound the same? 0:23:31.520 --> 0:23:33.560 You know? And the thing is, we're trying to see 0:23:33.640 --> 0:23:36.440 what justice is. Justice is supposed to be blind. So 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.840